Today You Die

"What Seagal does in Vegas, nearly destroys it." "Whoever set him up is definitely going down."

Today You Die starts off on the right foot, with two taglines, which is pretty sweet. It also has what might be my favorite Seagal character yet. He plays a modern day Robin Hood, who steals from drug dealers and gives to hospitals and poor people etc...
The movie opens with his weirdo wife having a messed up satanic dream and then leads into Seagal's character, Harlen Banks, committing his first of many crimes punishable by death in several U.S. states. Harlen sneaks into some drug dealer's home and robs them, but his job is interrupted by two other thieves whom he shoots to death. This obviously alarms the guards whom he has to kill as well, and then he slips away with the loot. When he gets home he promises his wife that he's retiring from the thievery business and that he knows a guy in Vegas that has a legit driving job for him. Meanwhile his wife keeps telling him that her psychic dreams are warning her against all of this but Seagal only pretends to care. He meets with the guy heading the job, Max, and smells something is fishy, but he goes along with it anyway. Once on the job, it starts off innocent enough. He drives to a casino and waits while his assigned partner goes to get the money. Harlens wife calls him while he's waiting, and when he answers she actually asks him "why are you whispering" as if Seagal has used any other tone in this or any other movie. When his partner comes back, he loses it and shoots two security guards and they drive off in a hurry with a gun to Harlen's head. Things get worse when they realize it was a set-up. Cops were outside waiting for them and now the chase is on. It is in this sequence that Seagal takes part in crime punishable by death #3 (#2 consists of him just being the driver during an armed robbery when the guards were shot). Seagal leads a chase all over Las Vegas that ends up smashing several civilian vehicles and killing God knows how many, while also smashing up multiple cruisers and killing 3 cops. Once he shakes the police, Seagal ditches the money and the truck and lays down on the side of the road until he gets picked up by the cops. Knowing that his knowledge of the whereabouts of the money is the only thing that's going to keep him alive, Seagal tells officials that he can't remember where he stashed it, and tries to install his claim that he was under the impression his job was legit. This of course, doesn't go over too well and so he gets locked up. While in prison, Harlen befriends the leader of a prison gang, Treach, who promises to help him bust out. Before Harlen gets a chance to leave, the guy who went crazy on the casino job tries to shank the location of the money out of him. Seagal doesn't waver a bit when he's told that he'll cut him up if he doesn't tell. He simply responds, "I got some advice for you. I think you should be my mother-fucking guest." He then of course beats the crap out of the guy, and breaks his arm and maybe a leg. From here, crime punishable by death #4 occurs.
Treach and him start a full-fledged prison riot in order to create a diversion for their escape, which entails the two of them flying out of there in a stolen sheriff's chopper.
Once out, Harlen can hunt down all the bad guys that lead up to Max, the guy who double-crossed him. Treach agrees to help out so long as he gets a cut of the money that Seagal stole from the Casino. So the two start off at the bottom with some low level guy and catches him on his way out from work. Seagal gets into the guys car and tells him they can do it the easy way or "The hard way is, I'm gonna take this 6'' gun and I'm gonna blow your little 2'' dick off..." the guy talks, but then tries to shoot Seagal so he gets killed anyway. Next, Harlen and Treach set up some of the other bad-guys by ratting them out for another job they did - stealing from the Japanese mafia. There's a long drawn out gun-fight that leads to Harlen getting the whereabouts of Max's two right hand men. They are tracked down and by this time it becomes apparent that these guys are working with the FBI. One of the guys, Vincent gets a personal visit from Seagal. When Vincent's body guard (UFC champion fighter Randy Couture) opens the door and asks who he is, Seagal responds "Uh... Girlscouts of America" and then kicks the shit out of him and the rest of the bodyguards. One of the guys tells Harlen where to find Max and sets up a meeting to exchange the cash for Harlen's freedom. Seagal goes to Max's place and Max reveals himself as a total quack before introducing Seagal to Bartholomew, a ninja guy who appears to be a formidable foe for Seagal. He does a bunch of flips and karate moves, Seagal takes one look at him and then pulls out a gun and shoots him, Indiana Jones style. After defeating a few henchmen Harlen makes his way out of the building just in time to watch Max take off in his chopper... and get blown up by the bomb that Harlen had planted on it. Now he goes back to meet up with Treach and rendezvous with the FBI guys. Of course, Seagal didn't trust them so he set them up and killed them all once they arrived (I'm pretty sure killing federal agents, even if they're crooked, is punishable by death). Then he blew up the warehouse that they met in... for no reason. He gives Treach a little money and gives some to a children's hospital and everyone is happy.

This is one of the more ridiculous stories of any of the Seagal movies. His character is completely nuts, and at the end of the day gets away with committing 5 different crimes that would at least gotten him life without parole in prison (that doesn't include killing a few guys here and there). There were 4 broken arms and a broken leg in this film and Seagal's whispering was incessant. There wasn't, however all that much action in this one and the story was WAY too complicated. Today You Die is definitely good for 3 ponytales though.

Today You Die: 3 Ponytales